stormy saturday night

as a way to regroup friday night, after the exciting thursday that was borderello prom 2008, i decided to try a new cupcake recipe. the result was better than i expected. the best description of the end product would be: mini brownie cupcakes with andes toffee mints. before i had made a cupcake version of this recipe with plain andes mints, though i quite prefer the brownie mixture to the cake.



although they may not look appetizing in these photos (i'm working on getting a new digital camera, though i can't decide what to buy. suggestions), they really were. in other news i finally started packing/cleaning my room, and yes it was thorougly depressing (as suspected).

prom cleanup

not much of an update since i last posted. i'm moving out of my current house in approximately two weeks and i'm thoroughly depressed about it. all four of my current roommates and i have miraculously gotten along really, really well, and it'll be sad when we all have to move out. anyhow, as one last hurrah we had Borderello Prom 2008, "Dancing Under the Stars of Venice in the Sea of the Millennium" last night. the event was complete with corsages, streamers, spiked punch, and slow dancing. pictures of this to follow.

i did a little baking last week, though nothing too exciting. i made the classic standard - chocolate chip cookies, but for a twist added in butterscotch chips as well. i brought the bulk of them into the office, and i'll assume they turned out good as they were gone within the first hour of work.

the student newspaper on campus - the daily iowan - ran an editorial today titled, "art museum needs to move downtown." for those not aware the current ui art museum is located quite near the iowa river and with the flooding this past month was forced to be evacuated. discussions had long been in the works, by the former director, to move the art museum to a more central location in downtown iowa city. which contradicts the idea of the 'arts campus' ie where the art buildings, theatre building, hancher auditorium, etc are all located on the ui campus. i'm not sure why i bring this up as i won't be taking classes or living in iowa city within the next month. maybe only to say that the editorial was poorly written and not very convincing at all. especially where they called for the need of museums downtown to compliment the 'art' of iowa city.

chocolate biscuits

Roommate Sophie and I were in the mood to bake last night so I thought I’d give the brownie roll-out cookies a shot. A better description of them would be chocolate biscuits though. They have a consistency similar to that of sugar cookies – and the recipe is quite similar as well. By chance the only cookie cutter I found in my kitchen was a bear shaped one – which worked out well.



These hadn't gone into the oven yet and as I feared i left too much excess flour on top - although it didn't affect the taste much they came out with a light white dust on the exterior.



Roommate Alisa was thankfully there to read out loud the latest celebrity gossip.



and of course, the best part of baking: cleaning off the whisk.

officially july

i regret that i haven't been posting much this summer. i suppose i could blame it on a number of things - ranging from the flooding in iowa city to my overall lack of creativity lately. most spare time is spent thinking about packing, but not actually doing any work. this past weekend was full of fun 4th of july activities including:

kabobs


vodka tonics


sidewalk chalk



henna tattoo


i haven't been printing much and have replaced any art making with baking. over the last month i've experimented with the following recipes:

1. chocolate chip pecan pie (not too exciting, but my first time making a pie completely from scratch. )
2. andes mint chocolate chip cupcakes
3. avocado lime cookies with coconut garnish
4. lemon poppy seed tea cookies
5. chocolate pumpkin cake

unfortunately i've been a poor photographer lately and do not have any pictures to share. baking projects for this week include:

1. cripsy salted oatmeal white chocolate cookies
and
2. brownie roll-out cookies

i'll make sure to post pictures of both of these.